Light Land

Put your duals on Mr!   

Shame I don't have the space and skills to produce a lay out of my own as some sort of counterweight to Oakley and contribute to the forum. . A good thing some other members do though! Really loving it.

You'd be welcome to shear my layout if your were handy. The fiats might be ageing but we'd make it grow.

You'd not want to many farmers family's having had a few years off and watching your slicker system and saying to them selves young so and so will be home next year and we might have another go, being abit wiser now and with someone young to put in the hours it might be on again for the family....do you have a min amount of years you will farm block xyz for?

One thing that strikes me is all the land you can get ahold of, here good arable land is not often up for lease or sale.  

Must be gold in the soil not stones  , they would of been some bill Alex in a tight cash flow year.

Nice to see the cows out Julian.

That seems quite a pre longed period? Do you differentiate between spring and winter varieties in those months? I know your seasons are very different to ours Ol? Well we start drilling winter rape straight after the combines, often chasing the balers out the field as we have a very short window, try to start around August the 15th, 20th is optimum drilling date and the first week in Sept is considered to be starting to get late although mid Sept would probably be our cut off date, a very narrow window. There then is a couple days/weeks depending on weather allowing for cultivations and glyphosate before drilling wheat from the end of Sept and i like to be finished by end of Oct before the weather turns. November i simply don't drill unless we are pushed and not finished i'll go on the frosts at night. I have heard a month either side of Christmas is a no go for wheat but i prefer to stop in November and plant a spring crop instead and try to establish a good crop that will be up and away with warmer temps and achieve a premium. With spring drilling we start in the last week of Feb if poss and have until late March, not the same pressure.

Yes it is a fair wack of time to be putting wheat in but with livestock often in the mix or double cropping time gets away on you. Spring wheat is from july-spet, oddly if we look after the spring wheat sown in spet witch is getting late for us and weather is on your side it'll still yield well and some of the weed spray saving is used on more water so costs aren't to bad.

Mid March to late September we drill wheat in this area depending when the paddock is free and not a swamp or a desert. 70-110kg/ha of tsw45 seed is any amount even drilling late on this farm. 

When do you stop drilling wheat?

what do you net per ha from a 70t crop of beet if you don't mind me asking?

Interesting reading Alex. We spread drilling out so that the input timings and harvest aren't on the same day and with todays weather patterns some of it will miss the hail or rain/sprouting or not need irrigation on the same week. There is a cultivar for every drilling date now days as you know.

If the wheat is late going in and with low soil N, going in with ammo at emergence will soon buck it's ideas up and then just cut back the N on the last application? total N is the same just the timing is move?    

you bet me to it ol :laugh:  I have seen that used up Suffolk way, for smaller drills than your alex, long time ago mind as now I am well away from it . sure a trailer converted to something like that would work out cheaper, wouldn't even need the tractor to stay on site, just drop it off, 1/2 tipped on the headland ,certainly worth looking into it, especially if the big rigs over yankie land use it

Glad i'm not the only who's seen them. Mine is planned for bringing two types of bulk fert out from the depot to save a trip then like you say just tip it up out on the farm and take from it what is needed, come harvest time it's just lifted out so you can take grain.

What about a putting a bin spliter in a trailer like you see them useing in Canada to keep there huge seeders going? a Y shape insert is bolted into the trailer/bin. The bottum of the Y has a door on it just inside the trailers grain door and depending on witch way the door is fert or seed comes out the back. Unloads even so the trailer wont tip over even if more of one product is taken out. Just an idea.

Plenty going on, nice update.

Here is a table of average days per month with rainfall image.jpg

700mm (28inches) is our yearly average precipitation

Same as here Alex, interesting.

Nice looking tank,be helpful for fire safety as well. 

I have been top dressing the oil seed rape,winter wheat, winter barley  with ORIGIN SULPHUR-N 26+35

Rates have been

200KG hectare on the rape

175KG hectare on the wheat/barley

Not a fan of DAP+S how do you get soluble P on rape ? 

looks like the England I have in my head,neat pictures.

Well said Alex, how much rain do you get more or less?

how long do keep the grass down for? 

Interesting stuff  .

If your variable rate drilling with K and the planter finds an area low in K and pours K down the spout the salt loading would kill the crop or give the plant a luxury uptake of K I'd of thought,you'll have to keep us posted on this interesting topic.

Keep up the good work.

Really nice Alex.

What fert are you putting down with what crops?

How many units of p and k do you have there by you?. 40 Olsen p?   

Just a pain the spreader sits so far back hey Julian, it's a nice model apart from that.

I too like how 2 layouts cross over,very life like.

Reading online about the state of English dairy farming this week doesn't paint a every good picture, will there be less cows at orchard ?

rude boy, you can cover a silage pit for that.

Interesting gizmo on the roof of the tractor Alex. Do you get fertility bands/strips spreading so wide and on the same ctf lines each year?

At the bottom of the world.................Cleaning up the last of the rye grass seed straw bales the last few days as the wheat is only just fit to thrash.

jumping mother of pearl a place like that must have some out goings each month, the sheep look cool grazing Dave,good work.